It's a small world after all; a potluck invitation: Spire Studios, Sun, Feb 28, 2010

Some 20 artists from around the world are descending on Beacon on February 28 for a two day residency at Dia:Beacon.  The artists who are all enrolled in the TransArt Institute MFA program are being hosted by Beacon residents in their homes.
Folks are invited to join the group at Dia:Beacon on Sunday at 11:30 am to lead blindfolded artists from the museum entrance through the galleries and to the interior of one of Serra's Torqued Ellipses. The artists will spend two days at the museum working on projects that will respond to Dia's exhibits.
After the museum closes on Sunday, the group will convene at Spire Studios for drinks, conversation and a little potluck dinner.  If you're interested in stopping in an being part of the conversation, feel free to, and bring a little something to munch on.  For more information, contact Angelika .

Angelika is in the final stretch of getting her MFA program through TI.  The program consists of an intensive Summer residency in Berlin with a short Winter residency which starts later this week at the Sideshow Gallery in Brooklyn.  She's organizing this Beacon extension to the Winter session.  Coinciding the Brooklyn residency, TI will be holding its annual open house for anyone interested in learning more about the program.

Stepping Out in Beacon NY on Feb 13, 2010

A few images from stepping out in Beacon on Feb 13, 2010.

Though unrelated, I'm sure, Will Walker's sculpture above at Van Brunt Gallery rhymes nicely with the
hues in the sunset I snapped through the window of Will's studio back in October.

David Rothenberg et fils creating layers of music, digital and live at bau.

Young love burgeoning at the Valentine's show at Spire Studios.

Jan 29, 2010: Opening Reception of Harry Roseman's Hole in the Wall at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar

Harry Roseman gave a talk on Friday evening at Vassar on the occasion of the official opening of his installation, Hole in the Wall in the atrium of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at the college.
Roseman's talk, along with a screening of a video documenting his Woven Walls installation at the Kleinert Art Center in Woodstock in 2008 preceeded the opening.  The main lecture hall was filled to capacity, so a second hall was enlisted, offering a projection of a live online stream of the talk. 

Unfortunately, the webstream had some form of buffering issue and we weren't able to see the entire talk.  A recording of the talk is available for viewing here.
The upside to this technical glitch was that those of us in the second hall were able to go in and view the work before the crush of people filled the space...and fill the space they did.  It got claustrophobic quickly, so I bailed out prior to the performance by Adrienne Elisha of a composition she created which was inspired by the installation. 

It had been too long since I last visited the Loeb.  There's really no better place in the area in which to casually stop in and indulge in morsels sized portions of great work.  The small size of the temporary exhibition and permanent collection galleries offer a remarkable opportunity to get a fix without needing to devote a great chunk of time. 

Anthony Easton's pilgrimage to Poughkeepsie - and kork

kork's current offering is a collection of snapshots by Toronto based artist Anthony Easton (his blog).  I met up with Anthony and his friend Pat at Dia Beacon on Jan 17.  The two had conceived a multitasking road trip, the first portion of which focused on visiting religious pilgrimage sites in upstate NY, like the Sacred Grove in Palmyra where Joseph Smith received the revelation that gave form to the Book of Mormon and the Mormon church.  The trip culminated in the installation of Anthony's work on the kork board in Poughkeepsie.

Anthony Easton placing photographs on the board of kork.

Anthony's project on kork consists of the photographic documentation of his vacation/research trip in upstate NY. 
In his statement, Anthony cites the recognizeable experience of suffering through a viewing someone else's vacation photos.  This curse of living vicariously through representations of other's experiences has only been magnified through proliferating technology and the annointment of all as producers of content, banal though that content may be. Anthony invokes the traditional banality of this form of vacation documentation, and gives it the pride of place that any individual gives to the relics of their fondly held memories.  These photos are the very same vestiges of leisure time that find their way into office cubicles on on to desks as rememberences of places visited and things during those non-work times spent away from the workplace.  They're emblems of experience and of the personal flown as flags of home in the pseudo home of the office. 

My contact with Anthony had been limited to short email exchanges until we rendezvoused at Dia the day before installation.
His endeavor of vacation as form of pilgrimage strikes a chord with one of the underlying tenets of kork:  how do we experience art?  Can a bulletin board in an accounting office become a cultural destination?  For me, the nature of pilgrimage and primary experiences plays a role in the broader implication of this work in this office in Poughkeepsie.  Would someone venture to POK to view the expression of an artist on a bulletin board in an office? Does the percieved value of such a site warrant such a trip? Is it sufficient to simply experience it remotely?  Is it enough to know that something is going on somewhere, and get the gist of it rather than making the effort of getting there?  Maybe, and yes - sometimes no.  Folks are more than welcome to stop into the office and check out the artworks.  They are equally welcome to feel satisfied that what they see online gives them some form of full experience.
The kork project as a whole partially rests on the calculation of reward divided by effort exerted - both in the creation of the works and the viewing of them. In this case the artist tested that calculation for himself.  
I'll admit to some anxiety when Anthony contacted me last year, interested in creating a project, and willing to travel to POK from Canada, and making that travel part of the piece.  I felt, but restrained, the need to inform him fully of the informality of the project and  he might not want to knock himself out over it.  But his coming is the realization of the kind of primacy of the primary experience that is self rewarding and not dependent on a climax resolution for validation.  I respect that attitude.  I know I'm projecting here, but I read it as an imperviousness to futility. It's a key to living, and making art; to dig a hole, not to retrieve something, nor to deposit something, and if something is found, to feel free to leave it in place, then fill in the hole once again and take something away from the whole endeavor.

This array of office implements and corresponding newsclippings is the most naturally sculptural and consistently enjoyable vision I behold whenever visiting the office of Bailey Browne CPA & Assoc.

In the neighborhood

There's a sculpture that suddenly appeared in the front yard of a house just up the block. I noticed it yesterday on my way to the gym.
It's an alright piece;  One that I might notice if it were in a public park or civic setting, although it maybe a bit generic in that public sculpture kind of way.  But in this setting (complete with a plaque with artist name and sculpture title: Robert Giordano; First Gate) the work definitely has more of a charge.

Part of this charge comes from the surprising context of this work sitting on a residential front lawn.  It's a slight tangle in relation to the otherwise uprightness of the line of Victorian homes on the block.  Perhaps the only really odd thing about the presence of the sculpture here is that it is not festooned with Christmas lights.  And although the popularity of those inflatable Christmas lawn figures push the envelope of scale even further than this comparatively modest structure,  the other reason I think it works here is the relationship of the work's size to its setting. The sculpture dominates the square of lawn on which it sits in a wonderfully almost-claustrophobic manner.  Lawns are tedious, tiresome uses of space, but here that bit lawn has been deputized into an actual purpose of framing and supporting the sculpture.  The ratio of sculpture to grass here turns the normal sculpture to sculpture park relationship on its head - and it works really well in this situation....unlike this similarly but less successful tweaking of scale in a public work.

It gave me a lift to see it there.  It also reminded me of how uninterested I am in the bulk of sculpture in sited in natural settings, or conventional civic settings.

I'm intrigued by the thought of having a sculpture tour that takes place in the front lawns of residences, if only for the novelty and the potential for the absurd.